ANNIE BLAKE
I Am Eye Skins Still
clothes hanging out of drawers like tongues on a hot day when my body is dying i want
my husband to bathe me in chrism when my body is dead it’s not about me anymore
the only marker of life i’m not sure if it’s death for i have already left a shell on the shore
my parents taught me the bible and dictionary were made of concrete i prefer to think of them
as a sewing machine they both died without being sewn workers drivers walk in caves
that rotate like transit mixers to avoid disturbing etymology to sew letters into pictures to pour
stories into the wounds of the earth
the funerary that lies with me is god there is everything here no scarab amulet or bowls
or plates i am the child of european peasants inhumations can write stories give me
the amulet of nefer spiders coming out of walls leave room for perviousness
like my coffin softening in the floods osteological analysis reveals god is lying next to my head
she tells me to write what she speaks but when you ask me to edit i tell you they are not her real words
i am in a reptilian stomach its scales are clothes on the inside but it is not me who is breathing
am i talking about her or god that is a question like too many hands stirring warm water
to warm me in the bath various teaspoons they place on my tongue my father fed me
in his own way he earned money by carrying heavy boxes on his shoulders he didn’t believe
in technology or trolleys he wasn’t taught that way my mother made lace by the light
of the lamp
because her daddy’s body got burnt he couldn’t interpret pressure regulators very well he slapped
her in the face for reading a book about love but he let her read it to him first so she never learnt
to write she tested the connective wires for radios she started to learn to spin devices like bobbins
but after she married she wasn’t allowed to earn money anymore
my grandmother slapped her in the face for asking about a woman’s unusual underwear
hanging on the line her mother didn’t like the radio when she heard the war sirens in a story she ran
out on the street and slipped into the ground the god in her wrote me a handwritten letter once
but by the time i typed it on my laptop i forgot what she said
Annie Blake is a Goodreads Author and a member of the C G Jung Society of Melbourne. She's also a member of the Existentialist Society, Melbourne, Australia and a holder of a Bachelor of Teaching & a Graduate Diploma in Education.